Tibetan Bon

The Bon are a Tibetan minority ethnic group who fled to India when the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1959. In 1968, the Bon established a community at Dolanji, India on donated land. Today the Bon community is settled and has an orphanage, a children’s hostel the Bon Children's Welfare Centre, a school (to the 11th grade), a health center, and a community farm.

CHI has helped the Bon community leaders with their projects including fundraising for water storage tanks, storage buildings, health facility equipment, a drinking water well, and public toilets. CHI has also provided funds to purchase a cow for milk and improve water quality and living conditions. CHI helped Bon community leaders launch an Essential Oils Project to generate income for the community. Essential Oils, which are valuable for their healing properties, have been used at the clinic to treat disease. The community has been able to produce its own oils to stock the clinic and to sell. CHI raised funds for containers and other supplies.

CHI also worked with Bon leaders to make secondary and university education possible for the community’s children by providing scholarships​

The primary focus of CHI's fundraising work is to support the children of Menri Monastery. It is traditional for Tibetan parents to send children to monasteries and nunneries for monastic training and education. They were also places of refuge and education for the poor. Bon families in Tibet, Nepal, and other borderlands of India want security and a good education for their children. Many families are poor, many children are orphaned or with single parents and their relatives are unable to provide for them.

People then turn to the Menri Monastery and Redna Menling Nunnery for the children's care and education. Relatives and paid guides make arduous journeys to Menri with groups of children who they then entrust to the care of His Holiness the leader of the community. No child is turned away, but beyond the generosity of donors, the monastery has few resources for these children so additional support is needed.